Life is interconnected and so are the topics on this blog. It might be cooking and gardening one day, yoga the next, knitting and sewing, or hiking and then bird watching followed by recycling or composting. They are the parts that bring humble joy to my life of voluntary simplicity in Montana.

Friday, June 24, 2011

Garden 2011 Photo Update

I finally decided I needed some work gloves that actually fit me. I've been wearing Matt's extra gloves for the past years of gardening which was okay since Matt did almost all the gardening and I mostly just harvested. Since I have had a more active hand in the whole process this year, as well as having taken up lawn mowing duty, I decided I needed a better fitting pair. Matt brought these home and they seem to do the trick so far. I wish they weren't pink, but I suppose that is too much to ask in a ladies gardening glove. They look much better now that they are stained with brown.

Washing just-harvested spinach to take along to the Love Your Mother Earth Festival. Matt said he thought since it was LYME we should most certainly have at least some homegrown produce to bring along. Plus we wanted to harvest it all before we left so the leafminers didn't get it all.

Peppers and kale.

The lovely snow pea blossoms, though this photo is shady and does them little justice.

These kale plants are so large and beautiful and perfect I am starting to get nervous. I feel like I should pick them now before something happens to them! They are the most perfect plants in the garden right now if you ask me. All the others are battling pests like caterpillars and leafminers and slugs. I blame all the rain. We've never had pests like we do this year. Oh well, it is a great learning experience.

Keleigh really wanted to water the garden (and had full conversation with the plants about their level of thirst while watering). It must have made quite an impression on her last time. Matt also showed her how big the tomato plants she'd help plant had gotten. She seemed pretty impressed.

4 comments:

Wow, who would think we live in the same state? We're Zone 3 gardeners here, but persistant!I will have to post a photo of our much smaller plants. I have been doing some reading about gardening and have learned that kale is extremely hardy and can even live through snowfall if it's mulched. Now I'm wondering how long I can keep my kale growing in the fall....Jerry Baker has written some books about using some common and some not so common household and garage items to control pests in the garden. Here we have deer to be concerned about. I have sprinkled human hair in my garden and have added some garlic and cayenne. I think I will mix up some eggs in water and let them rot and pour it on the garden as well. Our poor elderly, hard of hearing dog won't be a lot of help. Have a great weekend.......Denise

You have a wonderful garden growing there. The bugs are horrendous here as well and we are also blaming it on the added rain we've gotten this year. I'll be touring our garden tomorrow; I'm just too exhausted to do anything else today. Keep up the good work on that garden.

The Kale, Spinach and Peas look yummy! I miss those cool weather foods now! I'm currently growing a Tree Kale and it's starting to look pretty good! I just don't want to harvest the leaves just yet because it could use more growing up. Happy summer!

that kale is gorgeous...past its season here in western Kentucky. and your spinach pre-infestation also looks great. the bugs are eating the leaves on our fruit trees, so I'm going to try spraying them with some soapy dishwater (biodegradable soap). wish me luck and thanks for sharing, BLD!! hope you have a fabulous time at the festival; can't wait to hear what you learned!